Police shooting of mentally ill woman unacceptable, NY mayor says

Associated Press

Published 4:47 pm, Wednesday, October 19, 2016

NEW YORK — A police sergeant has been stripped of his gun and badge in the aftermath of what officials on Wednesday labeled a preventable tragedy: the killing of a mentally ill, 66-year-old woman in a bedroom in her New York City apartment.

The victim, Deborah Danner, “should be alive right now, period,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in an unusually swift and harsh rebuke of an officer involved in a fatal shooting.

“If the protocols had been followed, she would be alive,” he added at a news conference. “It’s as simple as that.”

Earlier, New York Police Department Commissioner James O’Neill told reporters that his department “failed” by not using means other than deadly force to subdue Danner as she allegedly wielded a baseball bat.

“That’s not how it’s supposed to go,” O’Neill said. “It’s not how we train; our first obligation is to preserve life, not to take a life when it can be avoided.”

The head of the police union representing sergeants, Ed Mullins, said the shooting was self-defense and bemoaned what he characterized as a rush to judgment led by the mayor.

“They’re taking the weak political spot and blaming the sergeant for everything,” Mullins said. “I’m not surprised. (De Blasio’s) up for election next year.”

He added: “We don’t have due process.”

The shooting occurred after officers responded to a 911 call about an emotionally disturbed person at about 6:15 p.m. Tuesday when they encountered Danner in her seventh-floor apartment in the Bronx, police said.

Police had been called to Danner’s home several times before to take her to the hospital during psychiatric episodes, the mayor said. Each of those times, she was taken away safely. This time, something went wrong, the mayor said.

Sgt. Hugh Barry, an eight-year veteran of the force, persuaded Danner to drop a pair of scissors she had been holding, but when she picked up the bat and tried to strike him, he fired two shots that hit her torso, police said.

Danner’s sister, Jennifer, was in the hallway, outside the apartment, waiting to accompany her sister to the hospital, when the shots were fired, said the mayor, who spoke to her on Wednesday.

“It was a very painful conversation to say the least,” he said. “I told her how sorry I was.”